a survey

[cellio]

If you are so inclined, I'm curious about your response to the following (replies initially screened; will unscreen and explain Wednesday):

Without looking, summarize what happened at Mount Sinai according to the torah, starting with God beginning to speak and ending with the golden calf. I'm looking for up to a few sentences, not detailed essays. (You can skip the building of the calf.)

If you like, please also say how you identify religiously (or that you don't).

Edit: Comments no longer initially screened. Also, there was one comment that the poster asked me to keep screened, which I thought I had done, but it's gone now. If I screwed that up, I apologize!

Comments

[nsingman.livejournal.com]

As I recall the legend, it's a bit confused, though doubtless my recollections are, too. On the one hand, Moses went up to Sinai for quite a while, prayed to and spoke with God, received the Ten Commandments on a couple of tablets, the rest of the Torah, and (in oral form) what is now the basis for the Talmud. However, I also recall that the entire Torah was offered to the Hebrews gathered there directly, and with one voice they agreed to accept and obey it.

Then, concerned that Moses wasn't coming back down, and despite having been the recipients of so many miracles so recently, they decided that an invisible god wasn't good enough, and they had Aaron craft the Golden Calf from their jewelry (earrings, etc.), along with a sacrificial altar. Then they engaged in all sorts of worship, including singing and dancing. God became displeased and wanted to kill them all. Moses dissuaded him, then became enraged himself (perhaps some of the music was disco), and broke the tablets. Then they burned the calf in fire, threw the ashes in water, and made the Israelites drink it. Oh, and I remember that a few thousand of the men were slain as punishment for the idolatry, but Aaron escaped unscathed, as did his tribe. Moses also went back up to Sinai to get some new tablets.

I'm a Jewish-born atheist, with no religious or mystical identification, and a tendency not to be entirely serious. :-)

[cellio]

As I recall the legend, it's a bit confused, though doubtless my recollections are, too.

No, it's not just you. :-)